Old DOS Games, let's face it, they were ugly, simple, clunky, a lot of them REQUIRED a 4.77 MHz 8088 PC to run properly, and even then, they were glacially slow if the coder was not using x86 assembly/machine language. Yeah, later on you got graphics - very limited 4-color CGA Graphics - but they were graphics anyway. There were some exceptions but a lot of those were just later ports of earlier games for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari 800 (more game-oriented machines, I'm looking at you Ultima). But for the most part, there were some diamongs in the rough (Microsoft Adventure, B.C.'s Quest for Tires), but nothing to write home about.

The IBM PC Jr. featured new enhanced graphics in the form of a "CGA Superset" known as "PC Jr. Video" - or later on "TGA" (TAndy Graphics Adapter), and a new 3-voice audio system consisting of a popualr sound chip found in arcade games combined with the original PIT based beeper. While the PC Jr was a failure, another company, Tandy, decided to take over the features on their new "1000" computer. The Tandy 1000 was released in 1984, but due to the failure of IBM's flagship product, the Tandy 1000 focused on it's PC Compatibility, and managed to become one of the most popular IBM COmpatible computers of the 1980's.

During the PC JR.s development, fledgling California Game company, Sierra On-Line, owned by Ken and Roberta Williams, was brought on to design a new game for the new PC Jr. to help aid sales. They wanted something that would wow the audiences and show off the new PC's capabilities in sound and graphics. That product would be King's Quest - which was really the first major Graphical ADventure game Release.

King's Quest was basically a sandbox where the player could autonomously roam around and solve the puzzles in basically any order they wished for the most part. It was kind of like the precursor to today's first person RPG games. Basically, you were cast in the role of "Sir. Grahame" - the next up to the throne of hte kingdom, and you had to go on a quest to rid the kingdom of various evils and prove yourself worthy to the throne, mostly through a series of various puzzles - basically - the fist full on Graphical Adventure game. While Ken and Roberta did similiar with games like Mystery House prior - this game was a step above that.

While King's Quest was influential, other genres of DOS game started to grow and get better too. EGA Graphics became a thing around 1984-1985ish, which now allowed standard, regular PCs to have full 16-color graphics like the Tandy, further enhancing the sound. Creative Labs created their first product, the Game Blaster, which gave similar sound to the PC Jr. and Tandy 1000 (same sound chip I believe), and later, in 1987, Adlib would release the first of their famous Yamaha YMF-262 OPL FM Synthesizer chip based "Adlib" cards. Setting the stage for what is to come.

By 1987, when Adlib and VGA came out - we already had many classic series in the works. Sierra had King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and was now importing games from Japan (Thexder, Silpheed, and Zeliard to name a few). LucasFilm now had their own games division with Ron Gilbert creating the engine that would drive almost all of the games that would become cult classics thereafter - SCUMM - or Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, which included to that point Maniac Mansion, Zakk McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, and Indiana Jones was in development for release soon.

This set the stage for what was to come. To add to it, the computer industry was changing. IBM was no longer top dog because of missteps to try and close the PC market with the IBM PS/2 series, Compaq had a change of management and was shifting to be more consumer focused, Michael Dell rebranded his company from "PC's Limited" to "Dell" - now the biggest company in the world, Gateway 2000 was taking off, some goons bought the Packard Bell name and started selling budget PCs under that name, and Tandy was finishing up with their 1000 series with 286 and even a 386 powered version. The PC was coming of age. And brewing in the background was a joint operation between Microsoft and IBM for the "Next Generation O/S" - OS/2 - which would later split off into two - OS/2, and Windows NT (basically).

I would set the peak of the Golden age of DOS Gaming at 1989-1993 - because a grand lot of the hugest releases would come out. at that time (as we will soon see as we look at these influential games more). In that time period we got The Secret of Monkey Island, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Sim City, Wing Commander, Loom, The Lost Vikings, Lemmings, Scorched Earth and Tank Wars - I mean, just look up the majority of the most referenced DOS games - most of these came out during the 1989-1993 period.

I'd say the last period of this would be 1993 which would be now when we had Doom, which was really the last tremendously popular DOS game, so much so, that it made the transfer over to Windows via Direct X just a couple years later (Doom95). The side effects of this is that we would end up with FPS leeching it's way into every genre as real 3D (and not RayTracing/RayCasting - which is what Doom and Wolfenstein 3D Used), to a point that the effects of Doom's impact can still be seen today 31+ years later in modern game design. On top of that, it's been sort of a trope-ish goal for people to get Doom running on just about anything with a Microprocessor from Smart Fridges to graphing Calculators.